aalihi wa sahbi wa istanna bisSunatihi ila yaumid deen. Allahumma ja'alna minhum wa minalladheena aamanu wa aa'milussaulihaati wa tawasaubil haqqi wa tawasaubissabri. Ameen ya rabbalaalameen. Thumma amma ba'ad. Fa Aoudhu billahi minaShaitanir Rajeem.Wojouhuyauma idhin naa'imaWe begin with Ayan no. 8 of Surahtul Ghashiyah, Surah 88. The surah now takes a turn, depictingother kinds of faces. We said at the beginning of the study, when we read the word 'Wujuhun'without the alif laam, it already indicated that another kind of faces will be depicted. A greatmany faces, may Allah make us from them, especially on that day are going to be naa'imah. Theprevious adjective was khashi'aah. This adjective is naa'imah. There I mentioned the tagdeen ofyauma iddhin but I didn't mention the benefit of it. When we say wujuhun yauma iddhin khashiah,it means it will be on that day the faces will be full of fear that will enter their limbs, but thatnecessarily also implies at the same time, linguistically, that is not the case right now. They are notin any kind of fear now. Similarly, wujuhun yauma iddin naa'ima, it is on that day that they will bein nae'mah. Nae'mah literally comes from no'omah softness, ease, relaxation iddha tabahjatin wasuroorin, tudhhiru alayhan nai'mah wannadhra warraaha, warrifahiya, biziddatil kannaasiba. Inother words, you can have all sorts of just relaxation, happiness, no stress, no signs of exhaustionor difficulty on their faces, freshness, bahja- there's this texture and freshness on their face. This ishow the tafaseer describe their faces but on that day. And by saying on that day in the middle ofthe sentence, what this illustrates is as the situation stands now, those who are going to enjoy thebliss of that day are going to have to put in a lot of work now. They are going to have to give theirlives and toil now. It's not going to be easy. They are not going to have relaxation here. So we havethis interesting contrast. You have those people who are also working hard but in the wrongdirection. But when they wake up on the Day of Judgement, they are waking up exhausted already,aamilutun naasibah. On the other hand, you have those who work for the sake of Allah, they alsoexhausted themselves. But when they wake up, they wake up fresh, they wake up relaxed. There'slike no toil on them. When you are fresh, you are ready to work; but instead of having more workfor them, now there's even more relaxation for them. And on the other hand when they were tired,when you are tired you can't take any more, but when they were described aamilatun naasibah,their real toil and labour was ahead. Tasla naaran haamiya. Tusqa min aainin aaniyah.SubhanAllah! So, wujuhun yauma iddhin naa'imah. Similarly in other places we find, what we didn'tdo in this series at least, wujuhun yauma iddhin naadhirah, ilaa rabbiha naadhirah. This is inSurahtul Qiyamah. We found in our series in Surah Abasa, wujuhun yaum iddhin musfirah,daahikatim mustabshirah, we found that too. Meaning, naaim literally means the face you havewhen you are given a gift. In response to a na'mah your face becomes naaimah. Aymun oo'hmareally. That which has been gifted. So this joy on your face, may Allah give our faces that joy onthat day.Now the next ayah is truly beautifulli sayiha radiahIt is only for those faces, their efforts. The efforts of those people, by really calling them theyhere, those faces, literally. The efforts of those people, literally those faces were engaged in somekinds of effort. The word saee, we also read this word when we were reading about Firaun 'summaadbara yas'aa, fahashara fa naada. That word came up over there. Its a fast kind of a paced walk.Sa'ee is when you are really busy doing something. Or you have a sense of urgency or a deadline andyou pace and you get things done. Sa'ee is done when you are really concerned about finishing atask. In other words these people are very content with the efforts they had diligently made with a

sense of urgency in this Dunya. Its all about diligence, sense of urgency, putting their efforts inand their energy in, all of that is captured by the word sa'ee. But what's really beautiful in thisAyah in the grammar of it is, is it is only in the efforts that led to the benefit of the Hereafter thatthey are content. So which efforts led them to the happiness of the Last Day? It is the efforts theymade for Salah, it is the effort they made for tazkiyah, it is the efforts they made to rememberAllah, the efforts they made to stay away from the Haram, the efforts they made to protectthemselves and their family from Hellfire. These are the efforts and the efforts to spread themessage of this Deen, to defend the integrity of this Deen, these are the efforts these peoplemade. And there are other efforts these people made, they made efforts at work, they madeefforts in business, they made efforts in other things, but those things don't even come to theirmind on that day.Its like those things didn't even count. Right now, those things count a lot, but onthat day, its like, what was that about, why did I waste my time doing all of that. SubhanAllah!So now lets see how Al Uroosi rahimAllah comments on this. He says lamma raa'at min thawaabihitawaddu anna jameea saeeha fiddunya Kaana li Dhaalik. When this person, these faces, when theysee the reward of what they had done, they're gonna wish that everything they had worked on inthis world was for that. They'd wish they had no other project in this Dunya. Un Kaana dhaalikasaee alladhi hua lilAkhira kareehan ilaiha fidduniya, la tubaasshiruhu illa bi shakkil anfus.And the reality was when they were in this dunya, when they used to do work for the Akhirah, theyhad to force themselves. C'mon, c'mon get up and go to the Masjid. C'mon c'mon lets do this. Theyhad to force themselves to work for the Akhirah. But doing work for the dunya comes easy.Somebody says Lets go to the program, there's a lecture, there's a class. Or Let's go memorisesome Quran at the Masjid or something, you seem like you are free. I don't know I am tired, Ithink its going to rain today. right then all your friends will say lets go see a movie, oh yeah let'sgo. And its twenty miles further away than the masjid, but it's all good, no effort, you don't eventhink twice. Then there is a fundraising dinner, and the masjid is trying to raise some money or theschool is trying to raise some money or the Da'wah project's trying to raise some money, Brothers,just ten dollars every body, twenty dollars everybody. I say , I dont know, theres a shortage, badeconomy, I don't know whats going to happen. As Shaitaanu yaeedukumal fakr. The shaitaan willcome and promise you, he's the one who's going to promise you poverty and then you leave hereand you take a turn and you enter Walmart and how you do infaaq fi sabeelillah, you know. Youdon't even count how it passes you, you just throw things in the trolley, oh this is good, this is good,you throw it all in there, you don't even think twice. You dont even check the receipt, how much itcosts, you just swipe the card, it doesn't hurt. But when you have to give in the sake of Allah itpinches. Oh man! I had a one dollar bill and a ten dollar bill in my wallet, why did I give the tendollar bill in my wallet. Why did I give the ten dollar bill! If you think twice, Al Uroosi rightfullycomments, it does take effort to do things for Deen. You know why, because, naturally, humanbeings kallawal tuhibbun al aa'jilah, we love things immediately, so that which comes to you rightnow, the pleasure will come right now, the food will come right now, the entertainment will comeright now. We want to spend for right now, but Allah says we will give you gardens and mansionsand nice drinks and waterfalls and this and that, but when is it going to come. You say you'll workfor it later because it's coming later. That's the attitude that sinks into the back of our minds evenif we don't say it with our tongues. Its back here. its in here, so we gotta get it out of here,So, li saa'yiha raadiya. The other linguistic thing that is really beautiful here is that this Saee wasmentioned in the previous surah as qad aflaaha man tazakkah. wa zaka rasma rabbihi fassalla. Thisis the one who was successful. Interestingly, in the previous surah, the unsuccessful werementioned first and then the successful. And the same thing happens in this Surah, the unsuccessfulhave been mentioned first and now the successful. And there was the one who cleansed himself hastruly attained success. The one who made an effort to cleanse himself, cleanse your bad habits,

cleanse your tongue, cleanse your hands, cleanse your mannerisms, cleanse the way you spend yourtime, cleanse yourself, this is the person who has attained true Success. And thereafter cleansinghimself, now you find pleasure in entertaining yourself and making yourself dirty again but inremembering Allah, wa dhakarasma rabbihi fasallaa. He mentioned the name of his Lord and thenhe made Salah. This is the result of cleansing himself that Salah just becomes natural. You findSalah difficult, oh my God it's six o' clock its Asr again, or Maghrib already. Can it just wait a littlebit, if that's the case then you know what the real problem is I haven't really cleansed myselfenough yet. That's what's going on. Anyhow... Li saa'yiha raadiya. There's a laam in the beginning,'li'. This laam is interesting because ridaa ususally comes with the harf baa. By the way rida'ameans to be satisfied with something but it also means to be very happy with something that youget. To be completely content with something that you get, this is rida'a. It usually comes with baalike radeetu billahi Rabbaw, wa bilIslami deenan, wa bi Muhammadir rasoola - sallalaahu alaiyhiwassalam. it comes with a baa not with a laam. So Allah does not say bi saa'yiha raadiya. He says lisaa'yiha raadiya with a laam. The benefit of this is two things. If it said bi saa'yiha raadiya, somegrammaticans say this is in the meaning of baa, which is correct, that with its efforts its happy.Its happy with the things it did. But li also implies two other things. Li there is Hudd, Li sawabisaeeha raadiyah, it sees the reward and says Man! I am so happy I did that. So that's oneimplication of that Laam there. The other implication of this laam is that for the opportunity forhaving being given chance to work, it is happy. These people, all of their faces will be full of joybecause they acknowledge Allah gave them a chance to serve His Deen. Li saa'yiha raadiya. Forhaving the opportunity to make the efforts they are happy they're content. So they are pleasedwith their Lord not just because He gave them Jannah, because He honoured them with doingthings that please Him in this dunya. In other words when you and I obey Allah it is an honour fromAllah. It is something we will thank Allah for. Of the things we will thank him in Paradise, one ofthe first things we will thank Him for is He gave us the opportunity to serve Him, to work for Him.You know a job is a job, but when you get a really high ranking job and a really noble job or youget elected to a very high position, the person goes up and says I'd like to thank and this is a 'greathonour'. They acknowledge that this is something elevated. And that's really the attitude that isbeing instilled in us. Now keep in mind this is a Makki surah, and we already said when theMessenger said this, remember they said Oh, daree'e, our camels can tough that up we canswallow it too, its all good. When the sahaba are making Da'wah, they are being ridiculed, they'rebeing insulted. And on the other hand Allah is saying, no no you are being honoured and you aregoing to be pleased, and you're the ones who're going to be relaxed. Right now they're relaxed andyou're going through toil. You're afraid. But the tables are going to be turned and Allah changesthat perspective for the believers.Fi jannatin aa'liyaYou know I read this stuff when I was in high school or a little higher than high school and I didn'tget it. Allah says they will be pleased and they are going to be in high gardens. Jannatil Aa'liya. Iwas like what's the big deal with high gardens or low gardens. You don't travel much when you're akid but when you travel with your family you go on a road trip where do you pull over your car toenjoy the view? When you reach a high place and you can see far. When you go into a hotel, unlessyou're a business executive and you're just going to sleep, if you go as a tourist, where do you wantyour room to be, first floor or top floor? You want it on the top floor. You want the view. Youwanna be able to see, right. And then the garden on top of a hill, people go hiking; they go on topof the hill because that's the most beautiful part, right? So Allah says, first of all they're contentalready and on top of that another pleasure. And this is in contrast with the disbelievers who areexhausted. On top of that they're thrown into fire, on top of that they're given that drink Tusqa minai'nin aaniya. On top of that they had no food except daree'ah. Torture after torture after torture.

Now pleasure after pleasure after pleasure. So Allah gives us these high gardens. May Allah give usthose high gardens. All of us.And this is another kind of ghashiyah. Now jannah is a lush garden, it surrounds you, envelops you.You're up there on top of this hill and this high garden and you are surrounded by things you caneat, all kinds of fruit, flowers, all kinds of vegetation. So you're surrounded by all of these things.Then He saysLa tasma'au feeha laaghiyaNow this tasma'au by almost the ijma'a of the mufassirun, the taa in tasma'au is haadhir, secondperson. In other words, you the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wassalam, you will not hear in itany useless talk. For a second we were talking about the faces that are lit, the faces that areoverjoyed, the faces that will have gardens and then Allah starts talking to His Messenger SAW. Sowho's the first one who is guaranteed Jannah, the Messenger of Allah. He says you won't hearanything there. Because He's already guaranteed him that spot. He'll be there and he won't hearany nonsense. The other benefit of mentioning the nonsense, laaghiya from laghw, it is the ismfaail form. What it does is lewd, shameless, thoughtless speech, when you say something withoutthinking about it, you say absurd things, obnoxious things, all of this comes under laaghiyah. Hesays to his Messenger (SAW), "You will not hear any nonsense, any lewd, any vulgar speech whenyou get there. Why is that important to the Messenger (SAW) because when he gives this Da'wah tothis Noble word, what do people say in response. Dont they say lewd and vulgar and obnoxiousthing. Dont they say when they hear about Daree'ah that the camel can handle it, I can handle ittoo?Inna la mardudouna fil haafirahWe're gonna be returned back? C'mon get real. Don't they call him insane? Don't they call himpossessed by a jinn? They call him all of these hideous things. They say all of these terrible thingsabout Allah and His Deen and so Allah's Messenger is told 'You won't hear any of this over there' Latasma'au feeha laaghiya. This in itself is a gift from Allah Azza wa jal. But coming down, and by theway this has been mentioned in another place for us too, La yasma'unaa feeha laghwan wa laakidhaabaa in Surah Naba'a, and La yasmaa'oona feeha laghwan wa la ta'theema in Suratul Waqiah.One of the pleasures of Jannah is there's no bad talk in Jannah. And the benefit of knowing that, sowhat's the big deal if there's no bad talk. You see, evil speech or bad speech in the end it hurtssomeone's feelings. No matter how rich you are or how well-off you are, if your son or daughter orwife or mother, someone talks to you in a hurtful way, is all of that money gonna save you fromfeeling bad? You can be in the best place, but words and hurtful speech can take all of yourpleasures away. So one of the gifts in Paradise is there won't be any word that will hurt yourfeelings. There won't be any words that you will feel bad about. Nothing will come and penetrateinto your heart. And if you look at the people you think who live well in this life. You think youknow you go into their house and you go "Wow did you see their place? Man that living room washuge. Did you see their backyard etc, etc. You figure they're happy and guess what you don't knowwhen they have fights amongst each other. And one day the wife is shedding tears and cryingbecause the husband said something. Or the children are yelling at their parents and the parentsare shedding tears. "I can't believe my own child said this to me." All that wealth doesn't amount toany pleasure. So this is one of the great joys of Paradise. And from another point of view, you knowwhen we move to a neighbourhood, like especially when you are buying a property, because this isnot rental in Jannah, it's your property now. Allah is giving it to you, there's no eviction notice. Butwhen you are buying something, when you're buying land, you don't buy at a low elevation, you buyit at a high elevation, because when there's going to be flooding or rain, what's gonna happen to a

low elevation, its gonna be damaged. The most expensive property in real estate is the propertywith the best kind of view. You go to places like California or Alabama or hilly areas. What are themost expensive properties? Top of the hill, because they overlook everything. And the ones on thebottom you get cheaper, because if something goes wrong, then these are the first ones to take thebrunt. So Allah says 'No, no, no you will be in a high garden. And of course people want to move toa neighbourhood where there's no crude people hanging outside on the street. They don't wannahear things in the house. They dont want honking of cars or cursing outside and things like that.You look for those things. You go and check out a house and then you saw the neighbours and saidmaybe not this neighbourhood. Maybe we should look somewhere else. This happens right?So Allah says La tasmaou feeha laghiya. You won't hear anything, you're gonna be in a goodneighbourhood. You're not gonna hear bad stuff. You're not gonna hear riff raff talking,SubhanAllah! These are the developments made by Allah Azza wa Jal. These are the estates waitingfor His Believers. May Allah grant us these estates!Feeha ainun jaariyaIn those gardens there are ain, springs. An 'ain' literally water springs. jaariya - flowing. What thistells us: Already we know it's a high garden. And in this garden now Allah says there is a spring. Inother words, you're on top of a waterfall. The spring is coming and it's falling down, subhanAllah!Look at the contrast! What did the kaafir get? Tusqa min ainin aaniya, subhanAllah. They're givenboiling water forced into their face. And here you have in contrast, the believer in the height ofParadise enjoying this beautiful scene including a waterfall that comes with it. I was telling you,you go to these really exotic expensive hotels, like you go to the Grand Hyatt in Grand Central inNew York City, or some of the biggest hotels in LA. One of their features is they have water fallssimulation-type things in the lobby of the hotel. So when you walk in you go 'wow, take a picturenext to that. You go to some of the hotels and they want to make you feel relaxed, 'cos travellersare stressed. You know how they make you relaxed, they put water fountains there, the simulationof water pouring and falling. You go to some of the most luxurious places in the world wherepeople think this is the life. Vegas, what do you see? I don't go to Vegas, but I am saying. All thesefountains of water human obsession of decorating with beautiful water. If they can't build one, Iknow people that they own mansions, they're in the desert out in Texas or Nevada or whatever,they don't have water there so what do they do? They build themselves an artificial waterfall. Thisis thousands of years old but it is still going on and on in our head today. Ala ya'lamu man khalaq.Doesnt He know who he created? He knows pretty well how He designed us. These things don'tleave our system. Back in the days was a real waterfall, now its a nice faucet. And a nice Jacuzziand all of that, swimming pool in the back, its the same thing. So, feeha ainun jaariya, flowingwater. And one of the things of Quran and speaking about water that flows. You know when it flowsits fresh right. But when it stands it becomes stale. So there's one place in the Quran where itmentions water that doesn't flow. It says feeha anhaarun mimmaa'in. He says there in it there arerivers full of water and you figure Allah did not mention jaariya, like He says tajree min tahtihalanhaar, its flowing. So, here in Surat Muhammed, He says its not flowing, it just says they'rerivers and they're full of water. But then He says lam latagayyur ta'aamuhuz, meaning the tastedoesn't change, the water doesn't go stale. SubhanAllah. When he doesn't mention flowing, He stilllets you know its not gonna go bad. It's part of the sensitivity of the language of the Qur'an.Feeha sururum marfou'aaSareer in modern Arabic is a bed. But in ancient Arabic its not a bed, its a couch. A couch thatyou recline on, that you would sit on. Only rich people used to have it. Usually Arab tradition,everything was on the floor. If you go to a traditional Saudi, Kuwaiti , Khaleeji family, or a

traditional Yemeni family even today, even the ones that are well off, big huge house, furnished tothe teeth, but where are you gonna sit? On the floor, everything's on the floor. Its part of thetraditional desert life, because you know the bedouin was always travelling. He can't exactly carryan IKEA couch on his back because that's gonna be difficult. So they chill on the floor. It's a relaxedkind of a setting. But those who were very wealthy and had forts and didn't have to live thebedouin life now they can have these high beds or high couches designed for themselves. This was asign of stability, this was a sign of you're not going anywhere. Youre not a bedouin who has totravel. Jannah, Allah is offering us what? Stability, He's offering us stability. No matter how muchyou decorate your home in this life, no matter how durable you think you're material is the granitetop kitchen, the custom shelves, and this fixture in the bathroom and that fencing, and this andthat, doesn't it all go bad in the end? Yeah, somebody came thirty years before you and did thesame thing and it went bad, right? But Allah Azza wa Jal gives us these high lofty couches. Andthen the word marfou'aa is an ism maf'oul, its an objective noun. What it means that which hasbeen elevated. In other words, when you use the objective noun what it implies is that somebodydid it for you.

Somebody made it for you; you know how you say custom made? Somebody made it for you. Somarfoo'ah means Allah actually engaged in the interior dcor of your palace where he elevatedyour seat. And this sareer, this couch, nowadays, I give you parallel, why is this appealing; youknow I could say I could sit on a low couch too, its all good. You know already the garden is high,now people in the high executive offices, you know what their offices have what with it? Anamazing view, right? And their seats are little bit higher. People in the position of an authority, likea judge, have a higher seat than everybody else. A presiding officer. a ceremony that is beingpresided, where does the person sit? In a higher place than everybody else. The idea of sitting upsomewhere where you can see what you own, You can see the property, you can enjoy. People likesitting out their sunrooms or whatever because now they can see everything around them. This isthe idea. In interior decoration, if you study interior decoration, you learn a lot about humannature, which Allah talks about anyway. You know they want you to put the couch in a place inyour living room where you can see what you own, the lot, the whole house. It gives you a sense ofspace, cos it's strategically placed. So Sururum marfooah, they've been elevated in this way, sowhen you sit on them you see the vast acreage that Allah has offered you. SubhanAllah the way thisis not my opinion it is by allusi (RA) in Rooh al Ma'aani, he says 'Rafa'aha rafi'un adheem fissamakwaheeya wajhiatul uloo li yaraljaalis alaiha jamee'ah mulkihi. So that the sitter can seeeverything that he owns. He can sit there and go oh yeah, i made it. This is nice. Even in thisDunya, you can set up your home really nice, but you know what happens when you work so hard toget a beautiful home. You never get to enjoy it. Your living room bees sitting there, the only timeit gets used is when some guests come. You don't get to enjoy it, you just go there cleaning,vacuuming, fixing this and that. And you have to do everything yourself. Allah says marfoo'ah. NotRafee'ah. Not just elevated, it has been elevated for you. Its been done for you.Wa Akwaabun Mau'doo'ahKoob or kawb in Arabic is a cup that doesn't have a handles. It's large glasses and they are designedas they're slender in the middle in the neck and they're wider on top. So kinda like champagneglasses nowadays. And those glasses, they have a history. Like exotic drinks. Allah says akwaabunMau'doo'ah, they have already been placed. In other words, your dining tables have already beenset, the serving table. Mau'doo'ah means lowered. In other words, a waiter comes and he lowersthe glass and he puts it right in front of you. You're already sitting on your chair right, you don'twanna get up. So the drink is brought and it is put before you. Its put down. Mau'doo'a, from

wada'ah, from the plate to place, it has been put down for you. And the ism form, tuda'ah orwudi'at. Allah didn't use the verbal form, why, because you will drink and another will be placed.They will constantly be placed for you. Mau'doo'ahAgain, I was reminded of this, you know, you go to these exotic restaurants, they hang the glassesand they leave glasses on the tables as part of their decor. Like cheap restaurants don't do that.Like fast food places won't have glasses on the table but an expensive restaurant is going to leaveglasses on the table and they're gonna leave glasses or display glasses on the bar. This is their ideaof showing exotic and expensive. And so Allah Azza wa jal gives us this scene, that for thousands ofyears has lasted in the human civilization. SubhanAllah, thousands of years and we're still in thesame place.Wa namaariqu masfoofahNamaariq is a wisaadah sagheerah, a small pillow, a small cushion, which is sitting on your couch,but its not really adjusted, you wanna put a pillow over here and it's just right. So Allah says, rowsand rows and rows of pillows. Tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of pillows. So you're basically jumpingaround and going crazy. You're just enjoying yourself. Everywhere you look there's relaxation. Andthen He addsWa dharibiyou mabthoothahThese expensive elegant rugs, called area rugs nowadays, dharabeeyou. Al Farrah says that theyare made of delicate fibres, expensive rugs. I used to live in New York City. One of the mostcommon in retail places are for exotic rugs. Exotic rugs are all over the city. Why do they havethem there? Who's buying them? The top level executives for their offices, they wanna get theseexotic rugs for their mansions, lofts, penthouses. The idea of an exotic rug, the centre piece ofyour home, you wanna show people, this was stitched in Persia, this that or the other. Allah saysmabthoothah, they're spread as far as the eye can see. You see all these beautiful area rugs. Socushions and a massive massive massive living room for you for chilling. How many area rugs in ourliving room, how many couches, how many cushions. Allah is offering to us, SubhanAllah, thatwhich to this day we run after. To this day, when you wanna get yourself a home, you look for ahigh elevation, you look for a garden, you look for a nice kitchen , you wanna decorate itbeautifully, when you eat, you want it to look nice, SubhanAllah. Allah gives us all of these thingsthat are innately human nature.Now the subject turns. You remember they poked fun of the punishment in the Hellfire and ourcamels can handle it. Allah says fine, you brought up the camel.Afala yunzuruna ilal ibilee kaifa khuliqat.Haven't they looked carefully at the camel, ibil. Many words are used for camel in Arabic, e.g.Jamal. Actually some of the Arabic teachers say if you don't know what it means, it probably meanscamel, there's that many words in Arabic for camel. But the most general word for camel is ibil.Allah says, didn't they look carefully enough at the camel, how it was created, kaifa khuliqat? Inother words, Allah didn't say kaifa khalaqnaahu, how we created it, He says how it was created,the passive form is used. In other words, Allah doesn't expect those people to give credit to Allah,but just to ponder on the camel itself. You brought it up yourselves, why the camel, why notanything else. First, they brought it up. Secondly, in the life of the desert, what was associatedwith their survival? The camel. And it's an incredible creature. Of the domesticated animals, the

biggest one is the camel. A child can control a camel, even though a camel can easily crush ahuman being, not to mention a child. And the camel is a very high ride. And the camel is incrediblycustom designed for life in the desert. This creature can survive with minimal water for days anddays and days on end, like nothing else can. It can feed itself off on shrubs and herbs that nothingelse can feed on, it can survive in these conditions. On top of that its got this seating on top thatsvery comfortable and it stores its own food. Its got milk to offer you, when there's a shortage ofother fluids. When its too old and dies, its got its skin to offer you. And its meat benefits them. Soall these benefits that come to you from its life, Allah says "Didn't you look at the camel and howmany ways it benefits you? Look at another thing Allah Azza wa Jal says. Falyanzurul insaani ilaata'aamihi. let the human being look carefully to his meal. He says Falyanzurul insaani mimmaakhuliq. Khuliqaa mimma in daafiq. let the human being look into what he was created from. Butnow not mimma khuliqaa, but kaifa khuliqat, how was it created, how was it that this creature wasdesigned perfectly in this environment?Every aspect of its creation one way or the other fits theplace and the services it provides. It is almost a tafseer of Alladhi khalaqa fasawwa, wa qaddarafahada. He created it precisely and He guided it to its activities. So it's guided to these things. Evenon a hungry stomach it continues to do work. It is very loyal to the human beings. In this regard,there are many things to reflect on when it comes to the creation of the camel. But the one's thatwe wanna highlight in this context comes from a hadeeth of the Prophet (SAW), al Muminoounahayinoona layyinoon. True believers are easy going. Hayin, easy going, layinun very lenient. KalJamal il aanif, like the camel that's been marked on its nose, with a peg inserted in its nose, it'sbeen domesticated. Inqeedah, inQaadah, If its made to stand, it stands up. Wa idhaa uneekha alaasakhratin, istanakha. And when its told to sit on a scorching boulder, it still sits down. Such a highcreature, we have to look up to this creature. But when we want to ride it what does it do, Allahcreated it with two knees. It comes all the way down so you could sit on it. Its a sign of humility,this massive creature is humble before its master. What is Allah teaching us? Allah Azza wa Jal isteaching us humility with this creature. He describes the believer that he should be like thiscreature. Easy-going, easily obeys Allah. Doesn't talk back. Even when it's told to sit on somethingdifficult it sits down, it relaxes. SubhanAllah. Didn't they look to this camel how it was created?And now this is amazing, the scenery of the Quran. How Allah wants us to depict Him. First it wasreflect on this gift Allah has given you. That in itself is enough for you to become a humble slave.Because Allah shows you what slavery and loyalty mean by means of that camel. Allah shows youperfection in His creation by means of that camel. There are so many ways to reflect on thatcamel. Then He saysWa idhas Samaa'ee kaifa rufi'atDoesn't he look towards the sky, how it has been elevated? By saying rufi'at there's already a clue.Havent there been incredible number of Surahs already, incredible amount of discourse already ,how the skies are going to come crashing down. And how it's all gonna end? So now first reflect onthe camel, now you're on the camel, now look up to the sky, reflect on it and you will know. How isit up there and it will remind you how it's gonna come down too. How its all gonna come to an endtoo.Wa idhal jibaali kaifa nusibat.The word nasaba is amazing, its asma addhaal, the words they mean something and their oppositeat the same time. So Allah says you look at the camel, you sit on the camel, you look at the skythen you look in the distance what do you see ? Mountains. Wa idhal jibaali kaifa nusibat. Didn'tthey look towards the mountains? How are they pegged to the ground? Nusibat means to be pegged,also to be outward and be apparent. So, for example an Arabic expression 'nasabaahu sharraa' he

made an open display of his evil. Similarly nasaba ra'sahu, he displayed his head. At the same timehe's lowering and raising his head. Its a beautiful expression for mountains. They are deep in theground and above the ground at the same time SubhanAllah. The other thing about nasaba,remember aa'milatun naasiba. Now the word over there also meant wobbly and wavering. Is thispart of the destiny of the mountain? Is it one day going to wobble, is it one day going to waver?SubhanAllah! How one word depicts the current reality of this creation and what is going to happento this creature when its destiny is fulfilled. When Allah Azza wa jal describes wa idhal jibalusuiyirat. All of that Allah has been saying is captured by Him saying wa idhal jibaali kaifa nusibat.Now he looks to the mountains and then he looks down and what does he see? The Earth.Wa ilal ardhi kaifa sutihat.And didn't he look towards the Earth. Sutihat has commonly been translated' how it has beenflattened and made vast. Sataha has two things in it: to spread something out and to smoothen it.But what is incredible, the earth is incredibly flat, yes, but the choice of the word is so incrediblyremarkable. The whole purpose of the Surah is to remind the human beings from the beginning tothe end about where they're headed. What their destiny is, what their destination is. It's theGhashiyah, the Ghashiyah cannot be denied. The word sathh actually gets used for the ceiling ofthe house. For example, Imam Raghib al isphahani says, As Sathhu a'lal bait yu'eeda saweeyan: Thehighest part of the house is made a roof. Wait a minute, the Earth is being called what, how itsmade like a roof. Because one day, unavoidably, we will be under it and it will be our roof.SubhanAllah. All of us will be in that position and it will be made our roof. And it will besmoothened over us. The grave will be dug, then the human being is poured in,then the dirt ispushed over and its been made smooth. So not only do you reflect on the flatness of the Earth, butit's also a reminder for us where we're headed just by the word sutihat. SubhanAllah!Now after this powerful reminder, the beautiful words of Allah that were repeated in the previoussurah,Allah says fadhakkir idhaa tanfa'aouhadhdhikra. Remind if the reminder has a benefit. HereHe saysFadhakkir innama anta mudhakkirBasically Allah is giving a tafsir of the previous Ayah. Now he's explaining what that means. Thenremind, no object has been mentioned, no fadhakkirhum. In other words whether somebody listensor not, you just remind. That's your job, that's it. Dont worry about what effect it has on people.Maybe it will have an effect maybe it won't have an effect. Maybe it will have an effect much muchlater. Abu Sufyan becomes a Muslim a lot later, but he heard it a lot earlier. The magicians withMusa AS heard the message a lot earlier, but when they saw a miracle, eventually they acceptedIslam. And they knew to make Sajdah, they knew the Akhirah was coming because they'd heard themessage already. So, fadhakkir innama anta mudhakkir : You are nothing more than a merereminder, a deliverer of a reminder. Mudhakkir. Its summarising the career of the Messenger(SAW)once again. The work of Da'wah boils down to the work of reminding human beings. In other words,reminding them of the past failure of the past human beings, now thats a memory. reminding themof what Allah has informed them of the future. Reminding them of the covenant that they hadmade already, before they even came on this Earth, remember that covenant Alastu birabbikum,qaalu balaa shahidna. Reminding them of their inner conscience that this is wrong and this isright. Reminding them of the honour that Allah has bestowed them as human beings. Then Allahadds

Lasta alaihim bimusaiti

In the previous surah, the only one who will benefit from the reminder is the one who fearshimself. Fayaddhakkaru maiyaghsha, in Suratul A'laa. Now He says you are not at all over them, youhave not been placed upon them as a musaitir. What is a musaitir? Al mussallatu al'aa shaiin liyushrifa alaihee wa yata'ahhada ahwaalahu wa yaktubu a'malahu, a good definition of masaitir. Amusaitir is someone who is placed diligently in charge of someone so that he may monitor everysingle thing that he does, control everything that he does and to record all of his activities. Like aguard in prison. There's not only guarding of the gate but guarding the guy himself. He can't doanything unless the guard over him lets him. So the Messenger of Allah (SAW) is told, you can't forcethem. You can't watch over them and guard them and pull them into Jannah. And what thisillustrates is, you would think this is condescending to the Messenger (SAW), Allah is scolding theMessenger (SAW). None at all. This is not the case. What is happening is that is illustrates theMessenger (SAW) is so worried, about his disbelievers who are in the end his people. They're in theend, Quray'sh. He is so worried, that if the words don't work, he wants to work to pull them intoIslam. But imagine, he's not in a position of power, they are. He's only in a position to give words.He doesn't have any military at this disposal. But he's still willing to go and literally try to forcethem to accept out of desperation and good will for them. Allah says no, you don't have to worrythat much for them. You haven't been sent as a guardian over them, to watch every one of theirmoves. Lasta alaihim bi musaitir. You can't force them. And this occurs in another place. In SurahQaf He says fa maa anta alaihim bi jabbar, You are not in any shape or form going to force them atall, You haven't been installed as someone who can force them in any way. The reminder in itself isenough. They have to find it in themselves. That's it. And this is by the way a beautiful expressionof La ikraaha fid deen. There's no forcing anyone in the religion. You can't force them. Even theMessenger is told you aren't there to force them. You're just there to nothing more than remind.Now imagine the power of reminder in the context of our Deen, subhanAllah. You hear a khutbah,or a speech and you say you've already heard it. But you know Allah says faddhakkir innaf'aatiddhikra. faddhakkir fa'intanfa'oudhikra lil mu'mineen, reminder will benefit believers.Reminder helps, even if you know. You know you have to study for a test, but you're not doing it.And a friend comes over and says, Man you better study and you go yeah youre right, I should. Andyou go start studying. Didn't you know you had to study, you did. Did the reminder benefit ? ithelped you. This is a need of the human beings to benefit from reminders. SubhanAllah. So AllahAzza wa Jal tells His Messenger (SAW) lasta alaihim bi musaitir.Illa man tawalla wa kafarNow the word illaa is interesting because linguistically it can min lakinnaa. So this would translateas far as the one who disbelieved and turned away is concerned. But the other thing here is theword illaa literally means an exception. And Allah did use it in the surah "except the one whoturned away and disbelieved" your are in a position to have authority over them and force them.The only exception will be those who turned away and disbelieved. The way this comes out is,eventually the Messenger will be victorious and he will have authority over every one of theirmoves and then he will say to them La taqreeba alaikumulyaumm. There's no harm coming to youtoday. But will he have eventually a complete authority over them? Yes. And that's captured just inthe word illaa. But now in the regular sense, however, the one who turned away and disbelieved isthe past tense that 's been used tawalla wakafara, which illustrates the anger of Allah. In theprevious surah we found wayatajannabuhal ashqaa. yatajannabu is mudhaarey', the present tense,the person who turns over and over and over again, present tense is istamraar, its got continuity init. But in this Surah, the anger of Allah is manifest. Whoever turned away at this point and stilldisbelieved, even once, because tawalla in the past tense illustrates oneness, al hudood, singularevent. Even if that happens now, fayouaddhibuhullahul adhaabal akbar. Then Allah mentions His

name, Then Allah will torture him. Now Allah mentions His Name. He doesn't say udhdhiba, hewill be tortured. Khuliqat, how was it created. Hes used the passive form before. But now Hementions His Name, Allah will torture him. it is almost as though He is telling His Messenger (SAW)at that point the case is hopeless there's no reason for you to remind him after that, Allah willpunish them.Now the word adhaab, comes from the word adhab, adhabar rajulu. For example, when a personleaves eating out of severe dehydration, it hurts them to eat out of dehydration this is calledadhdhab. From it we get the word adhaab. Its one of the worst kinds of punishments you cansuffer, you're dying of dehydration. So adhaab means punishment, but really it is a torturous or apainful kind of punishment. Allah will excruciatingly give him a torture, Al Adhaab Al Akbar, adhaabagain. U'adhibuhu Adhaab , as if Adhaab wasn't enough Allah says adhaab al Akbar, the greatestpunishment. So the greatest punishment is for what? Allah Azza wa Jal saysilla man tawalla wa kafar,he turned away and disbelieved, meaning he was given the reminder, what did he turn away from,what's the context. The context is that of being reminded. He walked away from the reminder anddenied it. You know Allah Azza wa Jal says falaa saddaqa wa la salla wa laakin kazzaba wa tawalla.Tawallee was mentioned there too, you know, he turned away, and there the context was turningaway from the prayer, turning away from praying. watawalla, Fasallaa was mentioned before that.Here Allah Azza wa jal is talking about the reminder. The importance of not turning away from thereminder. And what kind of people will not benefit. And so this illustrates to us a longstandingstruggle of the Messenger of Allah (SAW) against the kuffar who kept turning away and kept turningaway until it reaches this point. Where Allah says if they turn away now fau'adhibuhul adhaabalakbar, and notice the tu'adhdhib is mudara'ay, so the continuation of the punishment. Then findthe end of the ayah shows you it is the result of the previous ayah. Then as a result Allah willtorture.By the way, I should have mentioned another element of cohesion between this surah and theprevious one. In the previous one Allah mentioned the greatest fire Alladhi yaslan Naaran kubra .and here fauadhdhibuhul adhaab al akbar. Again the greatest and greatest in both of them.Finally the last two ayaat.Inna ilaina iyaabahum.No doubt only to Us the final return will happen. The word rujiu'u means return. But iyaab islemuntahalmaqsud, for the final final return. Meaning if you return home, then you go out again,then you return home then you go out again. Even when we go into our graves, its not the finalreturn because we are going to come out of the graves too. But Allah says to Us is the finalfinal return. It is only to us that they will return, where they're not going anywhere else. Inna ilainaiyaabahum. The first part was the return. The second part isThumma inna ilaina hisaabahumThe word Thumma here which means thereafter or then, the grammar of it suggest arrakheearrutba meaning dont just think they have to return to Us, you should know thereafter. Inna ilainahisaabahum, there is no doubt that their accounting has been taken upon us. Alayna means it hasbeen mandated on us. We have taken on ourselves to engage in their accounting. Remind

yourselves of the ayaat you read. Fa'amma mun ootiya kitaabahu waraa'a zahri, fa'amma munootiya kitaabahu biyameenihi, fasaufa uhaasabu hisaaban yahseerah. Allah says we've taken uponourselves to do their hisaab. And we learnt there that if Allah does your hisaab you are destroyed.And Allah says we've taken upon ourselves to do their hisaab. In other words these people aredestroyed. We read in the hadith there, also, the one who is given hisaaban yaseera, what happensto him, and the angels don't even look at their deeds and says Go man, you go, I know whats inthere. But the one, even if one line gets read from his book, what happened here, khuliqaa, he'sbeen destroyed, this persons finished, he's doomed. So Allah Azza wa Jal says inna ilainahisaabahum, we've taken upon ourselves to do their audit, their accounting, in other words theyhave been destroyed.May Allah Azza wa Jal protect us from that destruction and make us from the people of Paradise,the highest of it,SubhanakAllah humma wa bihamdik, Nashadu unlaa ilaaha illallah, nastagfiruka wa natoobu ilaik.Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabaraakatuh